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3 May 2015

garden share collective: may

With the slide
towards winter, the busiest and most productive time for my vegie garden is on
the wane. Two weekends ago,
mum and dad came up for a much-needed ‘backyard blitz’. Three pairs of hands
made very light work of end-of-season tasks, the two biggest being dismantling
the tomato patch (rolling off the netting, pulling up the stakes and the now
brown and brittle tomato plants, and giving the bed a quick once over) and pruning
back the yellow peach tree.

About six weeks ago,
maybe more, I came home from work to find one of the peach tree’s limbs had
dramatically split, due to the weight of all the fruit it was bearing. The limb
had sort of cleaved, forked, but somehow was not entirely damaged; the fruit
continued to grow and ripen. But with most of the fruit now picked or fallen,
it was time to cut back the broken branch (to the relief of the sage and chrysanthemums
trapped beneath) and many other limbs, too, that knocked and scrapped noisily
against the gutter in any winds.

Poor ugly tree

Dad largely did
these two jobs, with mum and I catching limbs, picking up tomato debris, and
tidying things into the council green waste bins or a pile for dad to come back
and take away on his truck. Mum then took to two of my roses with the secateurs
and gusto.

All this dramatic
cleaning out and pruning – combined with the dramatically reduced lily-pily and
the now denuded autumnal birch trees in my driveway – left me feeling a bit
exposed for the first few days; like a kid with a too-short haircut. It was so
bare, everywhere.

Work in progress. Tea essential

Elsewhere, I’m
waiting for the various lines of beans to completely finish, their swollen pods
to dry off for next season’s seeds. I’ve already collected a good handful of
borlotti beans for this purpose.

The zucchinis are
on their last legs – I get a couple of delicately slim fruit every couple of
days; enough to make me wistful for their fat summer siblings.

Over the next
month, I hope to pull out just about everything, then feed the soil before
letting it hibernate. This was new soil put in after dad built the frames lastspring, andI have been feeding the soil
ever since, mostly by digging in kitchen scraps directly, between the
plantings. On the weekend, when he was uprooting the tomatoes, Dad said this was
doing good – there were a pleasing number of worms about. Which cheered me
tremendously, because wormies are a good thing! I’ve organised to get some bags
of horse poo from a co-worker who has horses, and I’ll be looking out for bagged-up
sheep poos when I drive the country road down to my parents place. Ah, the
bliss of being a gardener – getting excited about poo.

I am also collecting marigold seeds for next season

The only things I
intend to plant next are some silverbeet, some purple sprouting broccoli (if
it’s not too late) and some garlic (if I get around to buying some local
organic bulbs).

The biggest and
newest addition to chez Dig in is my second lemon tree. Say hello everyone to
Lemonicious (Beyonce has a lot to answer for). She is a birthday present from
mum and dad, after I have been whinging every since I bought my home (ten years
ago) that I wanted a better lemon tree. Last weekend, I enlisted the help
(muscles) of my friend A to dig the hole, and together we planted this sturdy,
upright young tree (thank you A, you shall get some lemons!). This variety only
grows about a metre to a metre and a half tall, which is just perfect for my
backyard. I’m already dreaming of the G&Ts in a couple of years’ time –
yes, I know you have to let the tree, not the fruit, grow for the first year or
two. Gardeners need patience – and a few helping hands - don’t they?

Your thoughts?

16 comments:

Lucky you having some garden help. It's all looking very neat and organised, and I'm sure the peach tree will grow back into a beautiful shape next year. I know what you mean about the bare feeling though. We just ate the last of our borlotti beans last night, and I've got the new plants to put out soon. I'm envying you your outdoor lemon tree. Lemons are one of my absolute favourites, but mine have to stay inside, for winter at least. I like your tip of burying the kitchen scraps directly into the soil, I think I might try this, my soil is very poor in the garden. CJ xx

Morning CJ! I am hopeless at making good compost so burying the kitchen scraps is a really good solution for me! i bury teabags, eggs shells - just about everything except citrus skins - and it seem to be breaking down quite rapidly. so do give it a try.oh and it's much neater now i have stacked away that tangle of tomato stakes :-)

I wish lemons could grow here, but sadly we get way way too cold for that. I hope that naked feeling goes away. For some reason I always like too see the garden bare and all ready for winter. Well sometimes. I guess every fall is different.

oh how dreadfully sad daphne not to be able to grow lemons! a lemon tree in the backyard is such an aussie thing. i will enjoy my lemons for you.i am getting used to the bareness - and i agree, it is satisfying to see everything tidied away for the colder months. it's the natural rhythm of the garden.

Those borlotti beans are so pretty e! Great seed saving. Best wishes for the lemon tree, there is so much hope and promise in a new tree isn't there? I am a horse poo fan too...and collecting it is good exercise I think. It is a great time of the year to work on some soil improvement. Happy days! x

I can imagine how strange everything must seem being so bare Elizabeth. So wonderful watching the seasons and the circle of garden life. Love Lemonicious and hope you'll enjoy many G&T's and other lemony delights from her in the years to come. Catherine x

She is a beautiful lemon tree and will grow well for you. Lemonicious is a gorgeous specimen and hopefully will encourage your other lemon tree to grow as well. What variety is it? I bought a dwarf meyer lemon but it does not do well in our climate. You have been very industrious - your borlotti beans are amazing! How wonderful to bare it all to then enrich it with manure which your worms will love as well and be ready to plant for winter. Like a kid with a too-short haircut, oh you made me smile with this comment :D

merryn your words are encouraging too! i'm not exactly sure what the other lemon variety is - they are small, round and very smooth skinned fruit. I probably haven't given it much thought because I was always intending to rip it out and replace it! but I was much chastened by the lady at the nursery who sold us lemonicious, so I am now showing it some love and citrus food.thank you for your thoughtful comments, glad I made you smile :-)

Word-verification is on, as the robot-spammers are loving my tuna past bake too much at the moment! I hope you understand - and I hope you'll still leave a comment at Dig In. I love hearing your thoughts, knowing someone is reading, and will always reply. Unless you're a robot-spammer.